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Don't Fire An Employee And Leave Them In Charge Of The Corporate Twitter Account

Yesterday HMV, the beleaguered British entertainment retailer, laid off 190 employees, in an effort to cut costs and right its balance sheet. The company apparently pulled a large group into human resources and gave them the bad news. While this was going on, one employee, Poppy Rose, who had been an HMV community manager and thus had access to the corporate Twitter account, started live tweeting about the layoffs.

Over a period of around 20 minutes, she sent out a series of notes expressing her rising sense of alarm to HMV’s 61,500 followers (that number has since risen to 73,350). Rose admitted that it was unusual to use the company Twitter feed to express her views, but, she wrote, “when the company you dearly love is being ruined,” she felt it was justified. “There are over 60 of us being fired at once!” she wrote. “Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand.”

One of the most entertaining tweets that came through before HMV took back the account and deleted the offending tweets: “Just overheard our marketing director (he’s staying, folks) ask ‘How do I shut down Twitter?’”

After she stopped tweeting on the HMV feed, Rose continued to tweet on her own account, @poppy_powers, using a hashtag she created while tweeting on the HMV account, #hmvXFactorFiring. She explained that she had worked as an intern at HMV and in that job, had been responsible for the company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Because she is single and has no kids or mortgage, she wrote that she felt she was in a unique position to speak out.

On her own account, Rose also wrote about how the company never quite grasped what her job entailed. “I wanted to show the power of Social Media to those who refused to be educated,” she tweeted. “Just to set something straight, I did not ‘hijack’ the hmv twitter account. I actually assumed sole responsibility of Twitter & Facebook over two years ago, as an intern. When asked (this afternoon), I gladly provided the password to head office. I also set another member of staff up as a manager on Facebook, and removed myself from the admin list. I didn’t resist any requests to cooperate.”

What seems shocking is that HMV didn’t realize ahead of time that it had left the power of its social media accounts in the hands of a young woman it was letting go. The blunder could have something to do with the fact that consulting firm Deloitte has been running HMV while the company attempts to restructure. Deloitte and HMV did not comment on the Twitter fiasco. Instead Deloitte released a statement that said, “Since our appointment as Administrators over two weeks ago, we have been assessing the financial position of HMV.” Deloitte also confirmed that HMV had laid off 190 people.

Later in the day, this tweet came through the HMVaccount: “One of our departing colleagues was understandably upset. We’re still here thou, thx for supporting hmv thro these challenging times.”

But as recently as eight hours ago, according to a tweet on Rose’s account, she still had access to the HMV Twitter feed. “@hmvtweets you need to go to ‘settings’ and revoke my account access as an admin. I’m still able to switch between accounts.”

The rather obvious lesson for employers in all of this: Take control of your social media accounts, change the passwords, and restrict access before you let go of the employees who run those accounts.

As for Poppy Rose, it’s not clear how her actions will affect her career. As I’ve written previously, at least in the U.S., in most cases it is legal to say disparaging things about your boss online, if you’re speaking on behalf of a group of employees and if your intention is to improve the conditions of your job. But in the vast majority of cases, it’s unwise to do so and damaging to your reputation. Of course Rose had already been let go, so some of those considerations were moot. What’s not clear is how her actions will affect her career in the future. It may be that no boss would want to hire an employee who would take actions that would so embarrass an employer. On the other hand, Rose has made it clear she understands the power of social media and how to wield it, a skill that many employers value.

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Thanks for your comment. I’m not sure about this but I think she had moved up from intern to employee by the time she was laid off. But you’re right of course that it’s crazy to put an intern in charge of corporate Facebook and Twitter communications.

She started as an unpaid intern, she wasn’t unpaid or an intern for the entire duration of her employment with HMV. Lots of false reporting going on in this. Always good to check facts before writing an article.

You got that right.This may become her own 15 mins of fame and help her career more as obviously those she was working for are the ones in trouble business wise if they just had to lay off 190 people..

It’s definitely important to note that several years ago, many brands and companies did not have full-time SM managers, so they often relied on the work of advertising or marketing interns as they developed and learned more about the influences that SM have on their brands. Even companies as large as Southwest Airlines once had interns making these posts and monitoring conversations.

Letting her go was a big mistake. Getting her back could now prove very beneficial.She has ideas and she has guts and she also has a bit of wisdom since her remarks didn’t seem to disparaging considering what was going on. Cutting employees in any company,while not popular among the employment ranks is understood by those in business and in today’s world you have to do what is best for the company, yet you need to have employees that also feel you are doing the best for them as well. She may not be willing to come back yet should have the opportunity.You wouldn’t be the first to rehire a valuable employee and then start to check your valued employees before making cuts. More considerations are obviously needed when doing lay-offs.

That is so true~ People who hadnt followed before are now curious for a variety of reasons. In Social Media staying current in the buzz is more important than the details of the issue. She is gaining more popularity and other employers will be seeking her out.Meanwhile her former employers are also in the buzz so there will be those who gravitate towards them that might be able to help bring them solutions to their current issues and they have now learned a valuable lesson and see the door opening wider for them in social media so next person they put in charge of twitter has to come up with some witty presentations of what they want the public to know :)

This a a fundamental human resource failure and I’d hope that an HR leader will be held accountable. Even cursory due diligence before termination involves inventorying and planning for shutting down all external communication tools like this.

Certainly an oversight on their part, in not regarding social media with the power ir actually possesses ~! The HR leader may just be a bit out of tune with today’s new emerging business practices and how vital the internet and their reputation online is.

I think she made the point: FMV is clueless about communications in the modern world. Based on the tweets in the screen grab here, and the tweets on her personal account, she wrote nothing embarrassing about the company. Well, unless you consider having someone point out that management doesn’t understand social media an act of embarrassment.

Thanks for your comment. Yes, it was embarrassing on several fronts. First, that the company Twitter feed would broadcast news about the “mass execution” of HMV staff to its tens of thousands of followers, and second, that the company would be clueless enough to leave the laid-off employee with access to the Twitter account.

Those are also examples of mismanagement but are orders of magnitude more embarrassing than four tweets, one of which that compared the layoff to an execution (and she lowballed the number affected).

In the context of sending a wake-up call to management, they seem to be at about the right level of cheekiness, in my opinion. In other words, there needs to be a little sting or else what’s the point.

My prediction: her future with stodgy corporations may be limited but for the nimble, innovative and startup … her future should be wide open.

Your advice is solid: “The rather obvious lesson for employers in all of this: Take control of your social media accounts, change the passwords, and restrict access before you let go of the employees who run those accounts.”

Yet, new state laws restricting employers from asking employees for social media passwords are making it more risky for employers to reobtain login credentials if there’s some question about whether the employee owns the account. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2012/09/28/big-problems-in-californias-new-law-restricting-employers-access-to-employees-online-accounts/ Eric.